


Dirty Little Secrets

by agoodtuckering



Series: Carving A New Life [1]
Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Hidden Feelings, Infidelity, Past Character Death, Season/Series 03, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 19:51:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18923908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodtuckering/pseuds/agoodtuckering
Summary: After a conference goes rather well, along with a fantastic speech that Nicola manages to deliver, Malcolm finds that something has left her devastated. She's found out that her husband is cheating. She's always suspected, but now she's learned the hard way.





	Dirty Little Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place some time during Series 3.

Another hopeless conference, another dinner, another day. Another hopeless weekend spent in the company of completely fucking useless hacks and a completely, utterly fucking useless staff team for a minister that had too many issues to count. Though, in retrospect, she’d probably flourish with a good team, one who didn’t constantly shoot her confidence levels down through the floor or bog her down with mountains of shite.

Maybe in a different life she wouldn’t be so insufferable.

It was with this thought in mind that Malcolm found himself passing by Nicola’s room at quarter to eleven at night, after everyone else had left the party downstairs. He’d gone as well, not wanting to watch everyone embarrass themselves.

Her team were still down there as well. Glenn was chatting up a particularly pretty (but again, fucking useless) ex-minister’s aid and Ollie was dancing with some cum-stained whore that seemed to like how many drinks he was buying her. _Maybe he’d finally get his prick wet tonight. As if._

After a moment’s thought, Malcolm rapped lightly at Nicola’s door. There came no answer. Just as he was about to leave, figuring she’d either gone to bed or was having herself a shower to forget the fucking terrible events of the day, she came to the door.

Not that _she’d_ done terribly bad, mind. She was wonderful. She was, he found, actually _good_ with the general public. She was good at making friends, being kind, and showing how much of a difference she wanted to make. _The everyday voter…_ She was good with the civilians.

She looked like shite. He noticed, even in the dim lighting of the hall, how her mascara had run. She’d been crying. Of that he was completely sure.

“If you’ve come to shout at me, Malcolm, then you can fuck off…”

His brows drew together, a bit puzzled, and he asked, “What’s wrong? Ye were crying. Really fuckin' weird considering how competent ye were tonight. Ye acted like a normal fuckin' person out there. Really outdid yourself today. The three-percent swing is definitely worth all the hard work, ae. The votes all matter. Why do ye look like someone fuckin' face-painted on yer cheeks? ... Post-match puking, eh? That's new.”

His insults did little to calm her, or sway her into a better mood. “It’s none of your fucking business, Malcolm. Now fuck off to your own room and leave me to my misery.”

She went to close the door and reached out to wedge his arm through. “Dinnae try that,” he simply said. “What happened?”

She paused, her weight leaning against the wall now. That was when he noticed she was in her robe, something fluffy and white from the closet, and she looked like hell. It was as if she’d been in the midst of getting changed when something happened.

“Let me in,” he pleaded, his voice taking on a new note. It disarmed her completely and she moved away to let him wander inside. He tried to ignore her discarded clothes on the bed, politely glancing away as he closed the door behind himself.

“Are ye going to tell me what’s wrong or should I just go around killing everyone in the hotel until I find the person who obviously ruined yer night? I'm no going away.”

His question caused her brow to furrow. He sounded too protective just now. It confused her completely. Disarmed her as well.

“I…” She trailed off, clearing her throat.

He watched as she slipped into the loo, beginning to wash her makeup off. It occurred to him then just how comfortable they’d become with one another if she was just going on about her evening and not entirely minding his presence.

“Because I will,” he added. “I’ll go get my axe and a shovel now, if you don’t start talking.”

When she was finished, she dried her face on a fluffy towel, embossed with the hotel’s emblem, and turned back in his direction. “You won’t find him here at this hotel, I’m afraid,” she told him, a fire in her eyes as she spoke. “My husband is in Manchester on a _business_ trip.”

He made it a point not to give a shite about ministers’ personal lives, in any way, but there was something about Nicola that made him _want_ to care. Maybe it was the way life hadn’t completely eviscerated the goodness in her heart. She was in politics because she _wanted_ to help people. She hadn’t had the idea of doing so beaten out of her yet.

“What happened with that fuckin' cumwipe?”

Malcolm’s voice was all at once predatory and livid. What did he do to her?

She plopped her arse down on her bed, then began folding her clothes from the day. She hung up her dress and proceeded to bury her face in her hands. “He arse-dialed me, on his phone,” she began slowly.

He waited, eyeing her with trepidation. He wasn’t going to like this, was he?

“Well,” she said, a puff of air tumbling from her lungs. “He bum-dialed me, alright, while he was in the middle of having sex with someone. Probably a fucking prostitute, or that secretary of his that he’s always praising. When he realized, he’d quickly hung up the phone. Ten minutes later he was calling me. He tried to apologize, as if that would fucking help. Then he started yelling. I hung up on him. I suspect he’s _still_ trying to call me. I put my phone on silent and tossed it on the chair over there…” She made a vague movement with a flick of her wrist before having a seat again on the edge of the bed, covering her face with a trembling hand.

Nicola may have been a mess in the workplace, but she wasn’t naïve in her private live. She had womanly intuition. She knew that he’d probably been having affairs for years. But to be _faced_ head-on with the reality must have been terrible.

He stood stock-still for a moment, unsure of what to say or do. She took it as a bad sign, casting her eyes up at him and muttering, “See, I knew you’d regret asking why I looked like a trainwreck. You can leave now. It’s fine. Go on.” She waved a hand, wishing him away.

Glancing away again, she scrubbed her nose with a clean tissue that she nicked from the loo. What she certainly wasn’t prepared for was the way Malcolm slipped closer and half-hugged her, wrapping his arms around her shoulder and upper back as she sat on the bed. He simply stood there and held her for a moment, albeit a bit awkwardly.

It was an audible gasp that he elicited from her, much to her embarrassment, but she took the embrace in stride. She let him comfort her, sitting there at the edge of the bed. He eventually came to sit beside her, giving her a proper hug.

“What are you even doing?” she asked, a bit breathless. “Do you even know how to give hugs? The only embrace I’ve ever expected from you is one where your hands are wrapped around my neck and you’re watching the light leave my fucking eyes…”

He laughed softly, the sound a bit hoarse in his throat. Softly, he said, “Enjoy the fuckin' hug, Nic’la. Just shut up and enjoy it, ae? I’m sorry about yer husband. If ye’d let me, I could fuckin' skin him alive and leave him out for the vultures to finish him off.”

He absolutely tried his best _not_ to think about the way her nose brushed his neck as she slid in closer to be held. She wasn’t one for affection like this, he knew, and it spoke volumes about her inner turmoil. She didn’t like to have people touch her. Ever.

“I don’t know where I ever went wrong,” she said quietly, forehead resting on Malcolm’s shoulder now as she began to cry again. “I don’t regret any of it because of my children. You know?” She drew back for a moment, just enough to see his face, asking, “Were you ever married? I know you wear a ring, but…”

This was bordering on extremely fucking uncomfortable for him. But that look on her face asked for honesty, and though he never talked about his personal life with others, he answered honestly, “I was. I was married. No anymore. She died.”

It was like all the puzzle pieces slid into pieces in that moment. That last bit of Malcolm’s personality that she had never understood and everything combined, yes, it all made sense now. It clicked into place for her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

He tried to ignore the waver in his tone. Clearing his throat, he spoke. “Don’t be fuckin' sorry,” he told her. “Shite happens all over the world. She had cancer. It was ten years ago. Don’t start feeling sorry for me now.”

He wanted, very much, to make it seem as if he’d done his best to move on. But she _knew_ that he hadn’t. It was in his eyes and in the way he couldn’t quite hold her gaze. It was all very un-Malcolmy. It was foreign and bizarre and somehow, in some way, it made him seem all the more real, genuine, and Human in that moment. He was living and breathing, a real _being_ and not just some stony, sweary, scary gargoyle. Not _just_ the Dark Knight of Downing Street. Incredible as it were…

There really _was_ someone behind that steely façade that he kept up constantly.

It came as a comfort to her, in some odd way.

Malcolm noticed the screen on her phone light up again as he stared off, away from her. It was resting on the chair in the corner of the room and his eyes just happened to catch it.

“He’s calling you again,” he said flatly. “I almost wish ye’d let me answer the phone.”

She chuckled. “I’m almost tempted to let you, but no. Please don’t. God knows what he’d be saying _about us_ if you did that.”

She immediately regretted her words when he turned to stare dumbly down at her. “What? What the fuck would he be saying about us, Nic’la?” It was like he was _daring her_ to finish that thought.

She seemed to swallow hard. “That’s not what I meant… I’m not saying that there’s anything… I just… You, you know, answering my phone this late at night, yelling about a private family matter. He might think we’re…” She trailed off, unable to quite complete that sentence. “You know what I’m saying…”

His eyes narrowed slightly. He _very nearly_ got up to fetch her phone but somehow managed to keep himself sat still beside her. “He might think we’re _what?”_

It was unmistakable. Her eyes flickered lower to his lips before she dragged herself away, chuckling nervously. Dozy bint that she was. He just watched her move away as she spoke, his gaze falling to admire her bare calves and the way she looked in her bathrobe. “He might think _I’m_ cheating as well,” she said, “which I’m not… I would never… I might hate him, but I’m not like that.”

Malcolm rose from his seat, suddenly too aware of the unease floating in the room. He felt uneasy and uncomfortable, as well as a bit bewildered by tonight’s events. “Right, okay,” he started to say. “I’m just… gonnae go. Goodnight, Nic’la.”

And he left. She let him go more than willingly. They both wanted to say more, possibly even confess more, but it wouldn’t happen. Not this time. Not now.

**Author's Note:**

> Should I write a sequel? Let me know.


End file.
